Banff Marathon Training - Week 8 PFTW

 Last week...

Mon: Total Body Strength

Tues: 4 miles speed (2x1600) + core - aiming for 1600s at 11:13-11:31, actual 11:24 & 11:05.

Wed: Upper body + hiit, short run/walk at Rogue Actually ended up with 1 mile walk, 2 miles on hills, 1 mile walk

Thurs: 5 miles (2 @ tempo) + recovery - used my Rogue miles instead of tempo. This was the worst day (at work) and I needed beers and dog walks after my day. 

Fri: Total Body Strength

Sat: 10-12 Spent the day in San Antonio! 

Sun: Headed up to meet my friends for our long run - 7:30 start meant I had to leave at 6:30 and it was already hot and humid. I'm already mad at summer. It ended up being a fine run, and always good times with these ladies. 10 mile run, 1 mile walk.

After my run, I made the loooong trek back home, and took a very quick shower so Lora and I could meet my friend at the Austin FC game! 

We had a great time and WE WON! This was my second game (match? IDK) and both times I've been in the supporters section, which is essentially the most insane people yelling and singing and waving flags the entire 90 minutes and no seats. Just beer and yelling. The weirdest thing happened early, just before the game, when that lady in the white tank top reached down and took something right out of Lora's hand, and then got super angry when we were like whaaaat. People are the worst. So weird. 

Anyway, here's a cute picture of the giant dog being cute and non-chaotic. 

This week....

Mon: upper body

Tues: Hiit (ugh) and burnout butt and thigh (sounds bad), 4 miles speed (4x800?!)

Wed: core

Thurs: upper body, 4 miles tempo

Fri: lower body

Sat: nothing!
Sun: 12

Banff Marathon Training - Week 7 PFTW

Last week...

Mon: Upper Body Strength

Tues: 2 miles, Lower Body Hiit/Strength - it was 80* and humid, so I thought that'd be a good day to try the treadmills in our new amenity center for this short run. The run was good, but I guess I'm too dumb to use these treadmills because it took me a long time to figure out how to use it, and I still did it "wrong". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Wed: Core & Hiit. We were scheduled for another ice storm and this is what I picked up as essentials at the store. I can't figure out what the Starlight Coke is, but it's SO GOOD. 

Thrus 3 miles, Upper Body Strength - very, very cold and a little icy. This look is actually very dramatic, and I took off one shirt and that face buff about 5 minutes later. #dramatic. 

Fri: Lower Body Strength
Sat: Day of nothing - I think I took a 2 hour nap, and did nothing else. 

Sun: 8 miles. Drove up to run at Lake Pflugerville, but it was too blustery to run at the reservoir, so we hopped up the road to a more sheltered trail and it was a mix of hot af in the sun, cold af in the wind, and otherwise great. 

Starting this week, I'll be in my "official" training plan for Banff - a modified version of Run Less, Run Faster, with two quality workouts + one long run + 2 days of cross training. I'm accidentally overlapping two weeks of a Fitness Blender workout program, but it's strength based so I'm sure it's fiiiiine. 

This week...

Mon: Total Body Strength

Tues: 4 miles speed (2x1600) + core

Wed: Upper body + hiit, short run/walk at Rogue

Thurs: 5 miles (2 @ tempo) + recovery 

Fri: Total Body Strength

Sat: 10-12

Banff Marathon Training - Week 6 PFTW

 Last week...

Mon: Lower body strength/pilates

Tues: 3-4 miles, upper body strength, massage after work. Back still janky. 

Wed: Core Switched to an "easy" core/stretching pilates video and took another epsom salt bath. Enjoyed the last of my Holiday Cheer Shiner waiting for my tub to fill up. The big tub sounded nice in theory when we were building, actually kind of a hassle in real life. 

Thurs: 3-4 miles 2 miles run/walk, Lower body strength. Tried to run, still really painful, so just walked and skipped the strength work. Nice sunset, though. 

Fri: Upper body/core

Sat: 6 miles 1.5 mile run, 2.5 mile walk with Michelle, 2 mile hike with Chaos Dog.

Sun: rest

The good news is all that modifying seems to have helped, and I can walk without stabbing pain, so I'm excited for that! 

This week...

Mon: Upper Body Strength

Tues: 2 miles, Lower Body Hiit/Strength

Wed: Core & Hiit

Thrus 3-4 miles, Upper Body Strength
Fri: Lower Body Strength
Sat: 6-10 miles, as long as the back is truly fixed

Banff Marathon Training - Week 5 PFTW

 Last week...

• Mon: lower body strength and pilates - 💀💀💀

Something happened this day, and I impulsively booked a trip to the Netherlands in March, to use up the last of my flight/hotel credits. When I got an upgrade offer to move to business class for $300, it just felt like fate. 

• Tues: 4 miles, arms & shoulders; delicious beer and pizza

• Wed: core & cardio; lots of big dog harassment

• Thrus: upper body strength
• Fri: lower body pilates & cardio actually just this yoga video
• Sat: weird snow/rain/ice, lots of beers. Did some cleaning and rearranging, the living room is not doing what I want it to do and now I think I need a new rug and new coffee table. It's a whole thing. 

• Sun: 10 miles. I'm old and did something weird to my back, so I skipped one run earlier this week hoping I'd be magically healed, but that 10 miles was still pretty painful. Good news (?), it was the same either way, so seems fine! I did take my first bath in my enormous new bathtub, and do you know it took for-ev-er to fill up? Long enough that I ate two pieces of pizza waiting for it? It did help with the back, but only until this morning and now I'm crippled again.
  
  
  

This week...

Mon: Lower body strength/pilates

Tues: 3-4 miles, upper body strength, massage after work

Wed: Core

Thurs: 3-4 miles, Lower body strength

Fri: Upper body/core

Sat: 6 miles

Sun: rest

Banff Marathon Training - Week 4 PFTW

 

Last week... 

• Mon: lower body
• I captioned this on Strava as "💀💀💀"
• Tues: 4 miles, upper body
• Everything is dead because "winter" but it was a warm 65* and sunny
  
  
  
• Wed: core & hiit 
• Thurs: 3 miles, upper body + walking the big dog, who gives no fucks about walking right through ice. Skipped my run, it rained ice for hours and it was crazy. 
  
  
  
• Fri: two lower body videos
• Sat: nothing
• Sun: 8 miles
  
  
  
  

This week...

• Mon: lower body strength and pilates - already did this and a repeat of "💀💀💀"
• Tues: 4 miles, arms & shoulders
• Wed: core & cardio
• Thrus: 4 miles, upper body strength
• Fri: lower body pilates & cardio
• Sat: 10 miles
• Sun: rest?

Banff Marathon Training - Week 3 PFTW

 Last week...

• Mon: lower body 
• Tues: 3 miles (not great), upper body
• Wed: abs & lower body pilates
• Thurs: 3 easy (pretty okay), upper body
• Fri: lower body
• Sat: 6 easy (good)
• Sun: day of nothing

Drove up to Lake Pflugerville to run my "long" lol run with my running group friends, and drop by Target since I was "in town". It took me five minutes to de-ice my windshield before driving there, and by the end I felt overdressed in my long capris and tank. 

We did 80/20 intervals, because one of us read a book and now want to experiment with different intervals. Didn't love it, but wasn't the worst, so... 

I registered for a couple things this spring to fill in my training plan - Wanderlust Half Marathon and (take 2) Wildflower 25k. I live about 10 minutes away from the park that hosts Wildflower, so it'd be crazy not to do it?

This week...

• Mon: lower body
• Tues: 4 miles, upper body
• Wed: core & hiit just kill me
• Thurs: 3 miles, upper body
• Fri: two lower body videos
• Sat: 8 miles
• Sun: rest/hike/nothing?

Banff Marathon Training - Week 2 PFTW

I'm kicking off a new marathon training cycle, and remembering that I find this format really helpful in keeping track of how things are progressing, how I'm feeling, and what I love/hate about it all. I missed it during Columbia Gorge training, and Strava just isn't the same for me. 

I left my running group when I moved far, far away, so I've built my own training plan based mostly on the Run Less, Run Faster plan. I enjoy the lower overall mileage, and intentionality of each run, and hoping I'm not misremembering that. That plan is only 16 weeks, so I'm spending the next six weeks as "base building" and strength, before really kicking things off at the beginning of March. 

Last week... 

• Mon: Travel day, 3.5 easy
• Fri: 2 miles easy
• Sun: 3M Half, which, despite the tagline being "Downhill to Downtown" is actually very hilly. I've run this race a few times now, and actually really enjoy it. I enjoy it much more when there are several booze stops on the way to the finish line. This is when we realized we were about to get our first shot of the day.

For this week... 

• Mon: Strength. I'm still into the Fitness Blender videos, and I did this video this morning. 
• Tues: 3 easy, upper body
• Wed: abs & lower body pilates
• Thurs: 3 easy, upper body
• Fri: knee-friendly butt and thigh, i'm old and have knee issues :( 
• Sat: 6 easy, recovery stretches
• Sun: hike/rest

Wheeee.